#settler police

[readingsquotes]

"Ten years ago this August, a white police officer killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri. What happened on Canfield Drive that day sparked a nationwide movement to save Black lives, end police brutality, and make safety a reality for all people. As a registered nurse, pastor, and local activist, I spent over 400 days protesting alongside thousands of my fellow community members.

I will never forget the brutality we faced in response to our calls for humanity. Police used tear gas, pepper spray, rubber bullets, noise munitions, batons, shields, fists, and boots against us. The Missouri National Guard called us “enemy forces.” Our government labeled us “Black identity extremists.” Many politicians condemned us. Those of us on the front lines were traumatized, but we knew that time would prove we were on the right side of history — and it did. Time will prove the same for the students currently protesting across the country.

....

None of what protesters in Ferguson and at Columbia University have experienced is new — it’s happened hundreds of times throughout our history. It happened in Boston in 1770, when protesters supported independence from British rule. It happened in Pennsylvania in 1897, when mine workers demanded labor rights. It happened in Virginia in 1917, when protesters demanded equal rights for women. It happened in Selma in 1965, when protesters demanded civil rights for Black people. It happened in New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and elsewhere in 1968, when protesters demanded an end to the Vietnam War. And it happened in Washington, DC, and in communities all across our country in 2020, when protesters demanded an end to police brutality.

Behind every attempt to silence a protester is an idea that those in power don’t want people to hear, yet protest movements have been remarkably successful throughout our history. The women’s suffrage movement led to the ratification of the 19th Amendment despite opposition from those in power. The same is true of the Civil Rights movement, which culminated in the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the youth-led nationwide protests that led to the end of the Vietnam War, and South African apartheid.

...During the Ferguson protests, a group of Palestinians visited us and taught us how to protect ourselves against tear gas. That moment opened my eyes to the connection between state-sanctioned violence at home and abroad.

..It’s time our government responded to popular social movements with an ear, instead of a boot.

[intersectionalpraxis]

[fiercynn]

disturbed by the number of times i've seen the idea that calling gaza an open-air prison is not okay because "that implies that gazans have done something wrong", the subtext being unlike those criminals who deserve to be in prison. i'm sorry but we HAVE to understand criminalization and incarceration as an intrinsic part of settler colonialism and racial capitalism, because settler states make laws that actively are designed to suppress indigenous and racialized resistance, and then enforce those laws in even more racist and discriminatory ways so that who is considered "criminal" is indelibly tied up with who is considered a "threat" to the settler state. that's how law, policing, and incarceration function worlwide, and how they have always functioned in israel as part of the zionist project.

talking about prison abolition in this context is not a distraction from what's happening to palestinians; it's a key tool of israel's apartheid and genocide. why do you think a major hamas demand has been for israel to release the palestinians in israeli prisons? why do you think israel nearly doubled the number of palestinians incarcerated in their prison in just the first two weeks after october 7? why do they systematically racially profile palestinians (particularly afro-palestinians, since anti-blackness is baked into israel's carceral system as well, like it is in much of the world) and arrest and charge 20% of palestinians, an astonishingly high rate that goes up even higher to 40% for palestinian men? why are there two different systems of law for palestinians and israelis, where palestinians are charged and tried under military law, leading to a conviction rate of almost 100%? why do they torture children and incarcerate them for up to 20 years just for throwing rocks? why can palestinians be imprisoned by israel without even being charged or tried? why do they keep the bodies of palestinians who have died in prison (often due to torture, execution, or medical neglect) for the rest of their sentences instead of returning them to their families?

this is not to say that no palestinians imprisoned by israel have ever done harm. but incarceration worldwide has never been about accountability for those who have done harm, nor about real justice for those have experienced harm, nor about deterring future harm. incarceration is about controlling, suppressing, and exterminating oppressed people. sometimes people from privileged classes get caught up in carceral systems as well, but it is a side effect, because the settler colonialist state will happily sacrifice some of its settlers for its larger goal.

so yes, gaza is an open-air prison. that doesn't means gazans deserve to be there. it means that no one deserves to be in prison, because prisons themselves are inherently oppressive.

[sayruq]

Palestinians have endured a never ending barrage of injustice since 1948, 75 years before Operation Al Aqsa Flood

[transrevolutions]

if your "military operation" results in civilian deaths over three times the number of "militants" killed, including children, your military is a fucking immoral failure. no wonder the palestinians aren't "peacefully protesting". you're fucking slaughtering their kids.

[rebel-girl-queen-of-my-world]

“Anglo neighborhoods” tells you everything you need to know. But watch politicians and the media lie and drum up outrage and fear among those who aren’t paying attention!

As a Jew I’m disgusted by so many of those who claim my culture and religion. This is one of many reasons why. All Jews should be outraged by using our houses of worship as cover for the selling of ethnically-cleansed land, in clear violation of US law AND international law, while hurling racist, Islamophobic epithets and physically assaulting people.

ALL SHIT WE MUST STAND AGAINST IF WE’RE UPHOLDING JEWISH VALUES.

Repost from @savannimalz

“Imagine a world where stolen land is sold to create “Anglo Neighborhoods” and people didn’t go out and say that that was wrong.

Imagine a scenario where these absurdly racist and violent threats were met with no challenge. Those brave enough to stand up to all this are on the right side of history.

No amount smearing them will change that.” -@thesamueltaylor

Please support independent journalism!

Credit to:

@btnewsroom

@filmthepolicela

And I got information on the ground from @kate_burns_chad who covered the entire event and was assaulted, sexually harassed and targeted.

[audhdnight]

Thinking about parallels between Israel and the US and how our cops are trained by their military programs. How the police violence is learned from their disgusting military policies. How we gave them so much money and they are now known as one of the most technologically advanced militaries in the whole world. With one of the most technologically sophisticated defense systems in the world.

Also thinking about the parallels between US veterans and Israeli holocaust survivors.

Israel talks some big shit about how they HAVE to exist because look how Jews were treated and they need a place all their own, just look at these poor holocaust survivors they need us!!! Except when you actually look, you find that most of the holocaust survivors in Israel are living in poverty, homeless, unable to afford food so they’re picking up literal scraps off the ground after markets end for the day. Israel wants you to think they’re doing this for the holocaust victims, but they’re not actually helping those survivors at all.

Like how in the US we have tons of programming about needing new soldiers, about thanking service members for our freedom, about celebrating holidays that uplift veterans and wars and political leaders. But the actual veteran population is largely neglected. They’re homeless, living in poverty, living with crippling medical debt because of injuries received in the field, or any number of other things. Programs set up to supposedly help them (like Wounded Warrior) are total scams that don’t help anyone.

Our governments use these people as scapegoats and toss them to the side like trash once no one is looking. It’s easy to say “how can you hate the military? look at what our veterans won for us!” while pushing a veteran out onto the street and using that money to pay more cops. It’s easy to say “we need a place for holocaust victims to feel safe!” while refusing to pay for the healthcare these people desperately need and instead funneling money into paying people to come live in Israel so you can grow your population and continue colonizing.

Colonialist governments will never adequately care for the people they supposedly represent. It is an ideal built entirely on greed, and a government built on greed will never fork over the money to actually make positive change in the world. All they care about is power and money and land, more and more and more. They don’t give a shit about us.

[odinsblog]

Whitewashing History 101: The police “cleaned up” those “sleazy” whiskey traders :)

The RCMP Was Created To Control Indigenous People

Although the North-West Mounted Police didn’t become the RCMP proper until it absorbed the Dominion Police in 1920, its paramilitary origins are still highly visible in everything from its training depot to how it organizes its officers into troops, right down to the horse and the uniform, Hewitt says.

And while Canadians may like to position ourselves in opposition to the United States, citing their “even worse record in terms of treatment of Indigenous people,” Hewitt says that’s just a myth we tell ourselves to feel better.

The job of the Mounties “effectively, was to clear the plains, the Prairies, of Indigenous people,” he says. “Ultimately, they were there to displace Indigenous people, to move them onto reserves whether they were willing to go or not.”

History books, commissions, inquiries and public apologies reveal what happened next: Indigenous people who resisted were starved onto reserves. The federal government brought in the Indian Act and used Mounties to forcibly remove Indigenous children from their homes, placing them in residential schools rife with abuse.

(continue reading)

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"INDIANS BAN MOUNTIES FROM THEIR FALL FAIR," Toronto Star. October 16, 1933. Page 1. --- Detachment of Three Officers to Present Themselves at Moraviantown ---- Special to The Star London, Ont.. Oct. 16. - Word comes from Moraviantown that the Indians are in defiant insurrection against the Royal Canadian Mounted police. This afternoon the Indian fair opened there for a four-day show and nailed to the masthead is a formally adopted resolution in which President Emmerson Snake and his fellow directors declare the place closed to the "Mounties."

Inasmuch as one of the routine duties of the police is to visit and supervise all Indian fairs, including Moraviantown, a detachment of three officers will present themselves this afternoon and if necessary storm the bulwarks.

The trouble is an aftermath of last week's investigation of charges against the Indian agent

[runalongprincevaliant]

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A post shared by Priscilla Moreno Luna 🌻🖤 🧿🇲🇽 (@priscillaluna__)

“Not another nickel. Not another dime. No more money for Israel’s crimes.”

[readingsquotes]

"Make no mistake: There is an ideological witch hunt happening on college campuses right now, the likes of which has not been seen since Senator Joseph McCarthy and the House Un- American Activities Committee tried to ruin people’s reputations in the middle of the last century. Students and professors are being targeted by university administrators, assaulted by police, and investigated for their politics by Congress.

And yet, it is only the second worst thing happening to college students and professors right now. ...

in their book Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of Mass Media, Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman described the kinds of things which have been happening to professors like me as the fourth filter of their “propaganda model,” where flak or enforcers beat people up in the town square (verbally, politically, or even physically). The point of these spectacular floggings? When academics or journalists are seen being punished publicly, others are meant to get the message that they should keep quiet—or else.

One of the most violent forms of university flak has been the withholding of degrees, when students have worked towards diplomas for many years and have them stolen for engaging in moral disobedience about genocide. As postcolonial scholar Priyamvada Gopal observed, when university trustees have done this, it is “immoral blackmail, as is overruling faculty on this matter.”

Jairo Fúnez-Flores, an Assistant Professor of Curriculum Studies and Teacher Education in the Department of Curriculum and Instruction at Texas Tech University, was suspended for 40 days for his outspoken Palestinian support before being reinstated. Sami Schalk, author of the book Black Disability Politics, was hospitalized after being brutally attacked by police at the University of Wisconsin-Madison while trying to protect her students. Cops even broke a hand and nine ribs of Southern University of Illinois Edwardsville professor Steve Tamari while he was peacefully protesting at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri. And Mohamed Abdou, a visiting professor at Columbia University, was inhumanely alerted he was being fired when president Minouche Shafik threw him under the bus on live TV during a congressional hearing; he received no due process and is being forced to leave the United States.

And still, as horrible as this has been for all of us in America, what we are encountering is not the worst thing happening to professors right now.

Far from it. Our Palestinian colleagues have been experiencing far worse.

At least 95 university professors have been killed in Gaza since the genocide began, according to the United Nations.

The UN reports that “more than 80 percent of schools in Gaza” have been “damaged or destroyed,” while the ICJ bluntly says that “Israel has targeted everyone one of Gaza’s universities, “including the Islamic University of Gaza, the oldest higher education institution in the territory, which has trained generations of doctors and engineers, amongst others—destroying campuses for education of future generations of Palestinians in Gaza.”

The UN uses a single, powerful word to describe what is happening to educators and education institutions in Palestine: scholasticide, the willful destruction of a society’s ability to produce knowledge and educate its people. Preventing a population from being able to do research and to teach its citizens literacy, agriculture, medicine, science and culture is an aspect of genocide is to take away the very means of life.

[intersectionalpraxis]

[fiercynn]

On 7th June 2022, Afro-Palestinians of the Old City of Jerusalem rejoiced; their brother Mohammad Firawi was finally coming home.  It had been five long years since Firawi – then a twelfth grader in the middle of school exams – was accused of throwing stones at Israeli police, taken away from his home and shuttled around nine Israeli prisons. Now aged 25, he was ready to be back in the African Quarter, and they were ready to welcome him.  The community’s joy was interrupted, however, when two days later, Israeli intelligence re-arrested and expelled Firawi from Jerusalem for a week. Their reason? That he “defied Israeli orders to refrain from celebrating [his release].” Re-arrest is common practice after prisoners’ release, for reasons as impossible to justify as they are to fight. When one’s existence is made a crime, even moments of joy are closely monitored and policed.   “[The] Israeli occupation wants to prohibit any expression of happiness in the community,” Firawi tells Skin Deep, “even adopting the policy of prohibiting any symbols resembling Palestinian identity, including the Palestinian flag. They fight anything they believe negates their alleged sovereignty in Jerusalem.”

[agentfascinateur]

When you consider who recently ran Public Safety in Canada, Ben-Gvir's inclusion is no surprise...

A far-right Israeli minister openly encouraging the alleged torture, abuse, rape and killing of Palestinian detainees remains listed as a “key international contact” on Public Safety Canada’s (PSC) website.

...

But Ben-Gvir was well known as a convicted racist and supporter of far-right terrorism long before PSC prepared the transition document. He was found guilty by an Israeli court for both offences in 2007, and was also a youth activist in the far-right “Kach” party, which PSC lists as a proscribed terrorist organization. Ben-Gvir’s criminal record was widely publicized at the time of his ministerial appointment in Netanyahu’s extreme right-wing government in late 2022.

Nothing honourable about Mr Blair. Or liberal.

[immaculatasknight]

London's hidden hand